


Seltzer Water and Lemon, Dumbass

by cricketmilk



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: (It's Pretty Much Crack), Alcohol, Alternate Universe - Creatures & Monsters, Blood and Gore, But That Part Is Barely Noticeable, College AU, Comedy, Hinata and Kageyama Bully Each Other a Lot, Horror, I can't believe it's not Crack, Literal Dumbasses, Lots of Physical Fighting, M/M, Mature Humour, Miscommunication, There's Some Really Odd Conversation Topics, This Fic is Really Really Stupid, dark humour, enemies to friends to maybe more, halloween fic, roommate au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-31
Updated: 2018-10-31
Packaged: 2019-08-11 09:43:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,175
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16473167
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cricketmilk/pseuds/cricketmilk
Summary: Shouyou can't help but notice that there's something off about Kageyama. Halloween/Roommate AU!





	Seltzer Water and Lemon, Dumbass

**Author's Note:**

> I was hit with the urge on the 28th to impulsively write up a Halloween fic, so that’s what I spent my last 2 days and a bit doing. It’s rushed, it’s messy – absolutely all over the place, and it’s essentially crack. Almost.
> 
> Need to warn that there is a lot of crude talk including inappropriate euphemisms, and conversations discussing fetishes and cannibalism, but nothing actually happens to imply or need tags, I don’t think. It’s actually a lot more stupid than you think.
> 
> A huge thank you to Chiwi and TheHibiscusThief for playing beta for me. Good luck getting through this disaster!!

 

Getting into college was, by Shouyou’s standards, a _fucking miracle._

Even though his college held no fancy title, and was in fact a public college, the Big C was something Shouyou imagined that only smart people could attend, and the fact that he somehow managed to pass the exam in the first place gave him a confidence boost he really didn’t know he needed (Kenma told him with disdain that he’d never get into a college if he kept referring to it as _a Big C_ , but now he _had_ , which meant he had official rights to continue his dubbing legacy).

Unfortunately, as intelligent as being at a college made him _feel,_ it did not bless him with the actual basic smarts that he so desperately needed.

Classes were hard. Like, _really hard._

Shouyou had been on an up streak from his past single digit test scores from his high school days, but to this day his average usually clung around the thirties mark. But he was working on it! He had befriended a cool guy named Yamaguchi, who just so happened to be in a relationship with an absolute genius, even if said genius was a complete and utter _asshole_ . But sometimes said asshole would lend a hand tutoring him if bribed heavily enough with student coupons. And when Shouyou had been bled dry of his first months’ worth of student discounts, he managed to befriend _another_ genius called Yachi who, despite not being in any of his classes, was kind of lonely on lunch breaks, and quickly became his go-to lunch buddy (and additionally, much nicer tutor than a certain Shittyshima).

College was, unfortunately, a lot farther away from his home than the distance that his high school was, and with a heavy heart he left his family behind to spend the next three years living in the college’s apartments.

Shared apartments.

Every place held two students, it turned out. And Shouyou was left with some guy named Kageyama Tobio as his roommate.

Kageyama, was in fact, an _absolute jackass._

There was once a space in Shouyou’s heart that almost, dare he say, longed for the gift that was Kageyama’s height. He stood over two whole heads taller than him, leaving Shouyou envious of the fact that he could only talk to his roomie face to collarbone. But within about eight seconds of meeting him, he quickly realised that all that unnecessary height was just to have enough space in his egotistical body for all the hot air inflating his _fat ego._

Shouyou’s first words to him in their shared accommodation were, “Hi, I’m your roommate!” and Kageyama gave him a look over equivalent to assessing dog shit on a shoe before replying, “Yeah, I literally don’t care.” And walking off to unpack his _suddenly tasteless_ belongings into his _bland and boring_ empty room.

Yeah, they were off to a rough start.

Their shared space was small; they had their own bedrooms to themselves, but had to share the kitchen, bathroom, and living space. The day after they moved in, Shouyou had been sure to make himself comfortable on the sofa as he watched TV, splayed out over the entire length of the cushions that just so happened to fit his whole height snuggly between the arm rests. Not long after, Kageyama had emerged from his room, bed-headed and squinty with sleep, and meekly glared at Shouyou for a solid fifteen seconds before retreating to the bathroom.

The sofa was now declared Hinata’s territory.

He hadn’t realised how literal that thought could be, but from then on Kageyama avoided the living area like the _plague._ It was strange, because Shouyou spotted his shadow sometimes hover by the doorway as he silently watched the show he put on, but the moment he would turn to ask Kageyama why he wasn’t just gonna sit down instead of being an antisocial shut-in, the hallways would be empty and devoid of life.

But while Shouyou lived his life unabashedly on their supposed shared sofa, he came to realise that maybe Kageyama considered the kitchen as his _own_ territory instead. He had installed a stool where there certainly wasn’t one when they first moved in, and Kageyama was often found cooking for himself in a manner that Shouyou would never admit aloud as being talented.

Kageyama’s fingers were long, and nails manicured (Shouyou peeked in his wash bag in the bathroom – he had a nail kit and _everything_ ), and he would sometimes twirl his utensils in his grip while he waited for his food to cook.

In comparison, Shouyou’s hands were layered in toughened skin, fingers stumpy and nails chewed out of bad habit when being expected to sit still for too long without doing something practical.

One day, while thinking about this, he started nibbling therapeutically on his fingertips when a ladle came whipping into existence and smacked him clear across the face, knocking him from his space by the kitchen entrance. Kageyama’s stupidly perfectly prepped hand was still reached out towards him, as he barked, “Don’t chew your nails when I’m cooking! What if it lands in my food!?”

“I’m _not even in the kitchen!”_ Shouyou screeched from the floor, cradling his face. Ladles were made of metal, and metal _fucking hurt_. “You broke my face!” he continued, seething at him with watery eyes and a bruised ego.

“Your face isn’t fucking broken.” Kageyama rolled his eyes, even turning away from the damage he’d caused to stir his concoction in a pot. “You’re not even bleeding.”

“How would you know!” Shouyou flared his nostrils, somehow invigorated at the fact that they were _actually_ communicating for longer than a half-hearted glare.

“Because I can s-”

He went silent suddenly, his face darkening to something pensive. Maybe he needed a shit out of nowhere. But then Kageyama stepped over towards him and kneeled, and his stupid manicure treatment glided under his chin to lift Shouyou’s face slightly. For once Shouyou wasn’t left staring at his collarbone and was instead gaping a little uselessly at some newfound _eyes_ , as Kageyama gruffly said, “There, see? No blood.”

He picked himself back up, and after giving his dish a quick glance over his shoulder, turned back and offered Shouyou his hand. Shouyou took it, a little helplessly, and let Not-So-Jackassy-yama pull him up back to his usual collarbone height. A shame.

“Feed me,” Shouyou stated.

Kageyama’s face returned to its usual pinchy-ness as he frowned at him. “What?”

“Whatever it is you’re cooking—” Shouyou pointed to the dish behind him. “I want some. Share it with me.”

“Get your own food!” Kageyama spat.

“You broke my face!” Shouyou repeated.

“I didn’t- _ugh!”_ He scrubbed a hand down his face, and Shouyou was disappointed his dark shadowy look didn’t smear off like makeup. “You’re doing dishes, then.”

“What! Why?”

“Because I’m _cooking!”_

 _“Fine!”_ Shouyou reaching down to collect the discarded murder weapon he had almost been brutally slaughtered with mere moments before. But Kageyama’s food had always smelled ridiculously delicious, and Shouyou’s life on protein bars and microwaved noodle packets had to come to an end eventually.

He managed to take one step into the kitchen before Kageyama blurted out, _“Wait!”_ and shoved his dumb giant pretty hand into Shouyou’s chest, like a very effective door stopper, except it was a Hinata stopper, and knocked a fair amount of wind out of him. He wheezed at the impact, glaring up at his assailant.

 _“Now_ what? You wanted me to wash the dishes!”

“Just. Wait.” Kageyama took a heavy breath, and Shouyou sulked at him, pushing his weight just a little more insistently at the giant hand keeping him in place. Was he fucking _strong_ too!? Shouyou wanted to beat his snotty ass.

And then Kageyama exhaled, a deep whooshing sound that felt much more layered and deeper than what breathing was probably meant to be. Shouyou could practically hear the weight dropping from his roommate’s shoulders and he cautiously lowered his hand from Shouyou’s space. Shouyou gave him a raised eyebrow.

“Okay,” Kageyama said, seemingly more so to himself. “Okay, take a step forward.”

Shouyou scrunched his nose at his shitty demanding tone. He wasn’t some fucking _dog!_ He made sure to stomp as loud as he could in his one step into the kitchen, relishing in the noticeable twitch along the side of Kageyama’s face. He let out a deep exhale once again.

“Okay. Yeah, _okay,_ that’s. Fine.” He pointed to the sink and he turned his back to him, heading back for his (now _their_ ) precious food. “Go wash the ladle first. I still need to use it.”

“You’re so bossy!” Shouyou huffed, storming over to the sink and letting the water fill.

“Shut up!” Kageyama hissed back, and Shouyou found himself sticking his tongue out at him. He scowled his remaining frustration out at the slow growth of suds.

That was. Weird.

_Really weird._

But Kageyama was a weirdo, so that technically meant his unexplainable behaviour was, in fact, in character. So Shouyou couldn’t call him out for it, really.

The strangeness continued after the food was cooked and prepared, when he ushered himself out of the kitchen shortly after Kageyama. He feared partially that Kageyama might have already taken a spot he wanted on the sofa before he got there, but to his surprise he found Kageyama just... _Hovering_ by the doorway. He hadn’t even made it into the living area, like he was afraid to approach the wonder that was the not-yet-shared-sofa.

“Um?”

Kageyama jumped at the noise he made, grimacinging at the reminder of Shouyou’s existence and his plate of food. Shouyou still didn’t know what was on both of their plates, but it had some sort of chunks of meat, marinated in thick sauce, with rice and vegetables decorating its sides. So maybe Kageyama was pissed off that he only had half of his usual full meal. But Shouyou wished he would express something other than contempt towards him.

“Well?” Shouyou egged him. “Are you going in?”

“ _Am_ I going in?” Kageyama parroted back. Shouyou felt his brow exceed his hairline.

“Uh, _ye-s?”_

Kageyama nodded stiffly. “Okay then.” And then he walked in as if there hadn’t been a problem.

Shouyou blinked after him.

_What was this!?_

 

* * *

 

Kageyama seemed to have gotten over the living space thing not long after. Which meant Shouyou was blessed with the pain that was _actually_ fighting for sofa rights, because Kageyama must have taken Shouyou’s unspoken code to heart and would often splay himself out immediately whenever Shouyou attempted to find a place to sit. He’d jump straight onto Kageyama’s unprotected stomach, winding the breath (and possible lung) out of him, and then they’d be left physically tussling on and off the cushions until they were both stubbornly wedged _somewhere_ amongst the furniture.

It was kind of enjoyable. In an asshole-ish way. Because Kageyama was still an asshole. He didn’t even try to hide it; sometimes he’d ask Shouyou weird things like if he was going out anywhere on a certain night, and when he would reply that he was free (maybe Kageyama wanted to hang out with him?? Have a planned movie night?? Teach him how to cook?) Kageyama would just smirk and call him a loser.

But on those nights, where Shouyou would admit he had no plans, Kageyama would be _gone_. It was bizarre, really, because Kageyama didn’t have a single soul on campus that liked him and didn’t show any signs of having a social life (Shouyou had to add his own number to Kageyama’s phone because he didn’t know how to add people, and his contacts only held three other people, and two of them were his parents).

Shouyou spent the first few hours of his absence spamming Kageyama’s phone with messages.

Sent to: BakAgeyama

hey

hEY

are u ded

kaGEYAMA

DO I CALL THE POLICE

SEND ME A WINKY FACE IF UR IN TROUGLE

*trouble

Despite his efforts, they would remain futile and unanswered, not even left on read like some shitty kind of move that someone like Kageyama would probably do if they _were_ safe. This meant that Kageyama probably _wasn’t_ safe, and Shouyou finally caved and went to the apartment complex landlord to report Kageyama’s absence from their apartment.

“This isn’t a dormitory,” Ukai explained over his newspaper. “There’s no curfew. He’s probably out being a dude or something.”

“But what if he’s in trouble? _Dying!”_ Shouyou wafted his hands above his head to emphasise how big of a deal it was.

“Have you seen your roommate? No offense, Hinata, but I think he can handle himself in a fight.”

“But it’s _night time!”_ Shouyou emphasised, as if that explained everything. Kageyama probably _could_ handle himself in a fight, maybe, _begrudgingly_ , but people didn’t just up and vanish into the night, did they? That was bizarre!

“Hinata,” Ukai stressed, _“please,_ just wait the night. You can’t report missing people before a certain amount of hours, anyways. It’s out of our hands for now.”

Unfortunately, Ukai was right. Even after he had stormed his way back to the third floor and stomped anxiously around their apartment, he had nothing to give him leads about where the fuck Kageyama had gone. He didn’t know if Kageyama had friends, enemies, aliases, hobbies. When it came down to it, Shouyou couldn’t think about anything he genuinely knew about Kageyama’s life. Did he even know what he studied in college? (The answer was no).

The closest thing he had to personal knowledge was his habit of good nail hygiene, physical violence (which was kind of more like play, but still fucking hurt – Shouyou was always covered in faint bruises from their scuffles), and his love for adding meat to absolutely every meal he cooked.

But that was all in-the-apartment stuff! And there wasn’t anything there to make up any essence of an out-of-the-apartment Kageyama – the idea just didn’t compute in Shouyou’s brain.

He begrudgingly sent a few more dozen texts to Kageyama, but then the next thing he knew he was waking up as a pile of mess on the sofa. He was still in yesterday’s clothes, reeking of sweat, and his elbow was stuck wedged in the short sleeve of his shirt, with a deep ache in his chest where he’d slept on his front by accident.

“ _Ge-byeuh_ ,” he mumbled incoherently.

“God, you sound stupid even in your _sleep_ ,” Kageyama’s voice rang close to his head, and Shouyou shot up like someone had threatened to taser his ass. Kageyama blinked at him from the other end of the sofa, just slotted in the space where Shouyou’s legs had bent enough to leave a little gap by his toes.

Shouyou blinked at him, and Kageyama blinked back.

Shouyou kicked him in the ribs and felt his youth return to him at the pained wheeze he got in response.

“What the _fuck-”_

“Where the fuck _were_ you last night!?” Shouyou launched himself at his roommate, but that lasted less than a second before the world tilted in the wrong direction and the wind was knocked out of _him_ and he found himself lying back down on the sofa, Kageyama crushing him a little too painfully into his already existing imprints along the cushions.

“Uh-”

“I’m not in the mood today, asshole,” Kageyama growled, teeth flashing, pushing _hard_ against Shouyou’s wrists in his grasp as he pushed himself off the sofa. Shouyou sagged confusedly into the furniture, his heart beating a little too fast for just waking up.

“Uhm.”

“I’m going to bed,” Kageyama gruffed as he headed for the hallway. “And don’t fucking text me so much. And sleep in your _bed_ next time, dumbass.”

Shouyou listened to the force of Kageyama’s door closing shut behind him and became one once again with his sofa.

_“What.”_

He couldn’t figure out his roommate at all.

 

* * *

 

Over the next couple of months, Shouyou slowly began to piece together that Kageyama had, for a lack of better words, _mood swings_ . He was usually stuck in this mid-mood of dickish-ness that had both of them bearing their teeth at each other for the most part, but that was their normal, and Shouyou at least felt _safe_ when he found bruises across his skin where Kageyama would drive his thumb into his hip to piss him off, and in return Shouyou could bite at his arm and watch the bastard yelp in response.

And there were some days where Kageyama genuinely seemed to enjoy Shouyou’s company, where they’d both attempt to lie down on the sofa at the same time and end up with each other’s feet in their faces, and even weird things like dividing their clothes washing out of the machine, offering to take the others dishes to clean up with their own, and restocking the bathroom with new shower gels with oddly named fragrances.

And not so often, but still sometimes, Kageyama would act like Shouyou had just spat and pissed on his grave and seemed to detest any and all interactions with him until he got over his quiet dilemmas.

Truly, Shouyou was stuck with one hell of a strange roommate.

And, like any true strange person, Kageyama just had to _up the weird_.

Shouyou had never really contemplated that the reason he thought Kageyama was some sort of recluse was that he was always in the apartment, but he had never really acknowledged that Kageyama was just - always home before he was too.

Shouyou was sick. It was likely because the day before it had been raining heavily, and he was a man of little belongings when it came to the Big C, and thus he didn’t carry beneficial things like umbrellas or waterproof coats, and had to run to his apartment complex through a heavy sheet of rain, berated by Kageyama who was already home and drying himself off with a towel.

“It _smells_ in here,” Shouyou grumbled, and Kageyama replied by whipping his wet towel against Shouyou’s back, making him screech. He eventually got his hands on his own towel, but he couldn’t help feel conscious about the weird damp smell lingering in the house.

But even after checking the house that night for any kind of damp spots on the ceilings (they were all clear), it didn’t change that he was still left unbearably cold and dithering throughout his classes the following day.

“You really don’t look very well, Hinata,” Yachi berated him softly, watching him tongue helplessly at the hot air rolling off his coffee without him actually managing to find the rim of the cup.

“I feel like death,” he replied, snotty nosed.

“Then you really shouldn’t be in today!”

In the end their friendship was too great, and ol’ reliable Yachi managed to heave his deadweight to matron, who reminded them that this was _college_ , not school, and that they didn’t need her permission for them to go home when they felt sick, and that “recognising when it’s good for you to come in or not at the risk of your health is something you need to learn the boundary of, especially as adults,” or something supposedly important like that. Shouyou just knew he was filled with regret.

He waved farewell to Yachi and left for home before 1pm. He was surprised how quietly his key snugged into place in the lock, his entry into the apartment almost silent where he could leech onto his bed and die in peace or something, but he was instead left standing at the kitchen doorway.

He stared. And blinked.

Kageyama was home.

More so than home, Kageyama was leaning over the sink, elbows inside the rim of metal, as he… _Gorged_ on something thick and red in his mouth. It was way too big to be eaten whole, but there he was, like some kind of rabid serial killer on those cheap horror movies, he was just tearing into _meat_ with his teeth.

Red stained his skin. Rivulets were still dripping like lightning forks down his elbows into the sinks drain below him.

Kageyama was no longer eating, instead staring wide eyed at Shouyou from over his shoulder, as if realising he had been caught doing something he wasn’t supposed to be doing.

Which was… probably true.

“Uh-”

 _“DON’T!”_ Kageyama yelled, borderline panic in his tone. His outburst was so strong flecks of _definitely raw meat_ sprayed from his mouth. The remainder of the dubious piece of meat flopped into the sink with a plonk, and Kageyama wiped hastily at his mouth. His stained hands did nothing but smear even more red across his skin, his face steeped in blood from his upper lip to his chin.

“D-don’t say anything,” Kageyama added, running the tap water. The top of the tap left a print where he had grabbed it.

“O- _kay_ ,” Shouyou blinked, turning around and kind of. Stood in the hallway. Was he sicker than he thought? Maybe he was delirious. Instead of going into his room as planned, he migrated over to his trusty sofa, and flopped into his usual spot, which was all of it. He managed to wiggle the side of his head onto the arm rest, just for a change of pace, so he could relish in the pressure it gave against his closed eye.

He was just considering about how he swap his bed with the sofa one day and see if Kageyama would ever notice before he heard the run of water stop. The apartment went still for a few moments in time, and it was at that point Shouyou actually remembered what he had just walked in on. The end of the sofa dipped in weight, startling him. He hadn’t even _heard_ Kageyama come in, and their flooring was laminated.

“You didn’t run away.”

Shouyou peered at Kageyama from where he was smooshed against the arm rest. “I’m too sick to be runnin’.”

Kageyama was silent for a moment, before he croaked out, “I can tell.”

Shouyou had to think about his response. The scent of their discount lemon dish soap was strong, and Kageyama looked as spotless as he did most days. Nothing like the mess Shouyou had walked in on minutes before. It almost seemed practiced. Perfected.

“Do you do that often?” he asked.

“Yes,” Kageyama said, boring holes into him. Well, at least he was being up and front about it. Shouyou groaned and rubbed at his eyes. Everything about this scenario was _weird_.

“At least – sound _embarrassed_ by it, or something.”

“I’m not embarrassed about it,” Kageyama muttered. “I’m terrified.”

Shouyou frowned. “Of what? Me?”

“What will-” He watched as Kageyama’s perfectly scrubbed, perfectly delicate fingers fiddled between his hands. “-what you’ll do with this information.”

What he’d do with this information? What could he accomplish with knowing that his roommate had some sort of creepy fanaticism with raw meat and apparently ate like a starving dog on the street, except he did it in their _sink_ , and that was where they cleaned their dishes every night.

_Wait a minute._

Shouyou squinted at him. “Did you clean out the sink?”

“ _That’s_ what you’re asking?”

“ _Did_ you-”

 _“Yes!_ Of course I did!” He gestured to himself, as if that could clear up the situation at all. And yeah, _he_ was clean, but he wasn’t _the sink-_

“Why are you – _okay_ with this?” Kageyama asked, a little helplessly.

“With what? That you have a thing for meat?”

“Don’t say it like that!” Kageyama gritted out, frustrated.

“A thing for blood then-”

“Nope. No, the meat one was better.”

“Okay then. Kageyama’s thing for meat.”

Kageyama grimaced. “That’s _not_ better.”

“God, make up your mind!”

“ _Please_ , don’t tell anyone,” Kageyama stressed, his words slurred by the palms pulling across his face.

“Bakageyama, I hate to tell you this, but I’m not the asshole in this relationship.” Kageyama choked a little bit on his breath, but Shouyou ignored it for sitting himself up, despite how much his body protested that it really _did not_ want to rise and face these conscious consequences. How much of this could he have avoided if he had just beelined for his bed like originally planned?

“I’m not gonna – _tell_ people. Or whatever. If you’ve got some sort of iron deficiency and are _that_ dedicated to not get the booster shots for it, then whatever. I won’t judge.” _Aloud_ , anyways. It was still really fucking weird.

The look Kageyama was giving him was. Somehow even more weird than the meat-eating thing. He almost looked _– in awe?_ Shouyou had never seen such an expression on his face before. He kind of wished he could take a photo of it, just so he could use _that_ as actual blackmail material against the lanky bastard.

 _“Really?”_ Kageyama asked, as if he had just been gifted with the sight of a tooth fairy who was offering him a golden coin.

“Yeah, I guess,” Shouyou sniffed. He really needed some tissues or something. Medicine would help, but neither of them had any source of a first aid kit because they were both absolutely hopeless with words that had more than three syllables in them. “Just don’t leave any mess around the apartment.”

“I never have,” Kageyama scoffed, and Shouyou _really_ tried not to think about where else Kageyama might have eaten his bloody offerings within their shared domain. Maybe he could buy one of those black light things to check the house for blood stains. He leaned back against the sofa with a phlegm-gurgling sigh, debating the odds of getting back up to climb into bed.

“You could be stuck with worse,” he huffed. “Imagine if I walked in on that as a vegan?”

Kageyama shoved him hard enough to wedge him into the crease of the sofa.

 

* * *

 

It took exactly an evening of rest and three days of normal living later for Shouyou to realise that accepting Kageyama’s very questionable habits was now, quite frankly, one of the biggest mistakes of his entire life.

It was as if his dismissal over the situation to prioritise his health over eating habits had invigorated a new, unforeseen pocket of ego that Shouyou had failed to realise Kageyama possessed.

Because now he just ate his weird ass meat around the house. At _any_ time.

Shouyou should establish some rules, or something. He was willing to accept that when he wasn’t in, Kageyama sometimes indulged in the primal monkey brain instinct of his to just shove something questionably edible into his mouth without consequence, but when he was at _home_ , and Kageyama was passing through the hallway with a casual plate of bloody slab’o’meat in his hand en route to the sofa, Shouyou had to put his foot down.

“ _Wheeere_ are you going with that?” Shouyou’s voice was steeping into noticeable panic. If he dripped any of that on his sofa-

“Finding Nemo’s on,” Kageyama answered, as if that validated anything. Shouyou shot past him, bumping past his gangly limbs to beat him into the room and maybe attempt to block his path. Kageyama stumbled with his blood pooled plate, yelling as he fought to keep it balanced.

 _“Dumbass,_ I almost dropped it!”

“You’re not eating _that_ on the sofa!” Shouyou retorted, arms spread wide. Kageyama frowned down at him.

“It’s not your sofa anymore,” he growled. Shouyou furrowed his brow. Okay so it was technically a shared sofa, but what did he mean by _anymore?_

“It might as well be!” He objected. He wasn’t intimidated by this new blood thirsty Kageyama. You give a guy the freedom to do one nasty habit, and it was like he suddenly thought he ruled the roost or something! And Shouyou had been getting cosy on that piece of furniture far too long to give it up willingly.

“I’ll fight you for it.” Kageyama snipped out, and his eyes seemed to darken, shadows creeping down his brow – not that his noticeably horrifying scowl could ever scare Shouyou enough to call it quits.

Shouyou lunged first. He aimed for the knees and as planned, the mighty oak that was Kageyama’s legs crumpled like freshly chopped lumber. He keeled over, wide eyed, grappling to keep his plate up and balanced.

_“My meal!”_

“That’s not even a _meal, stupid!”_ Shouyou crowed from where he was clambering over his dumb tall legs to get at his chest. He was gonna give him a black eye if he tried to eat that shit on his – _HIS_ – sofa.

“The sofa’s _mine!”_ he announced, whacking Kageyama’s chest with a closed fist, just hard enough to keep him down on the ground where he should _stay_ , because looking up at him all the time was gonna give Shouyou neck problems one day.

“Okay – you win! _You win!”_ Kageyama submitted, clutching his plate like a lifeline. Shouyou paused mid-whack.

 _What?_ Just like that?

Then he noticed how Kageyama refused to even look at him, dedicating his attention to the concern of his gross ass plate.

 _“Seriously?_ The meat’s _that_ important?”

 _“Yes.”_ He even lifted the plate to check for spills or anything, and visibly relaxed in relief when there wasn’t any.

And as discreetly nice as it was that he was sticking true to the not-making-a-mess thing, it kind of dampened the fun in their tussles. Shouyou sighed, feeling defeated despite being the victor. He ran a hand through his hair, before staring back towards his beloved living area, where the TV began to blast the opening credits for the movie.

“You can – still watch Finding Nemo, I guess.”

“Then what was the point of _this!”_ Kageyama gestured to his rumpled front, where Shouyou had been ragging at him mere moments before. Shouyou flushed, picking himself off from Kageyama.

“You _said_ you wanted to fight!” He shoved an angry finger at him, watching Kageyama pick himself back up slowly. “Don’t ask for a fight if you don’t mean it!”

“I get it, I get it,” Kageyama growled, but this time it almost sounded… gentle. It was weird how Kageyama could balance these two opposing ends. But that was his main personality trait in all of this, so was Shouyou truly surprised? “The sofa’s yours.”

“You’re damned right it is!” Shouyou huffed, storming back into his most favourite room.

Somehow, he managed to find himself content and snug on his sofa for the remainder of the movie, with Kageyama’s head leaning against his calves as he sat on the floor, picking at his bloody tenders in silence. Even though the tips of his fingers were stained, and the bridge of his lip thick with coagulated blood, Kageyama somehow managed to leave not a speck of mess in his wake. A halo of disposable fast food napkins was sprawled out around him though, just in case.

It wasn’t like Kageyama could complain. At least he still got to watch Finding Nemo.

 

* * *

 

Luckily, aside from the odd plate or bowl of additional bloodbath that Kageyama would now indulge in every few days, he was still in fact, a really good cook, and would still make meals with Shouyou (only on the pretence that he would have to do the dishes, and some days that was _hard_ because now he was conscious of the past history of blood drainage their poor apartment had gone through while he wasn’t looking), but even as they both settled down to eat (Kageyama resolutely sat on the floor nowadays, like the weirdo that he was), there would always be some form of cooked meat in the dish.

“Hey, Yamayama,” Shouyou asked one day, nudging the side of Kageyama’s cheek with a sock laden foot. Kageyama scowled at him with a full mouth, an actual fork peeking into the space between his lips.

Shouyou lifted his own deeply cooked meat on his own fork. He loved how Kageyama cooked it – letting it sit in the gravy long enough for it to crumble in his mouth. He wondered why Kageyama preferred the stringy raw version over this. He was starting to think that it was beef, but he could never quite tell if they had been eating the same thing, because the raw plate edition was much more different than the cooked mince he was enjoying right now. “-why do you eat so much meat?”

Kageyama’s’ fork scraped a little on his plate as he scooped up a portion. “I like meat,” he said simply, taking another mouthful.

Shouyou liked how evening Kageyama ate. Like a real person. He’d almost be tempted to let _this_ version of him eat on the sofa alongside him, just because gravy ran thicker and slower than blood did, and it was easier to wash out if it ever did spill on anything.

“Well that’s obvious,” Shouyou sighed. “I mean like, why do you have so much? So much that you eat cooked meat at night and raw meat in the day.”

Kageyama stopped chewing, staring so intensely at his own plate Shouyou was expecting it to combust under the pressure. Eventually, he answered, “I… have to.”

“Is it like – a diet thing?”

“Yes,” Kageyama resumed eating, and Shouyou squinted at him.

Now, call him crazy, but lately Shouyou was learning yet another side to Kageyama’s ever-growing list of abnormal behaviours. And recently he was noticing that Kageyama was letting Shouyou fill in the gaps to some of his own questions. Which meant they probably _weren’t_ true, and he was just going along with whatever Shouyou would come up with.

Because his answers would give him a sense that he was always _right_ , and that would make him _smart_ , but if he had learned anything from living at the Big C, Shouyou knew he was not a smart person.

Which meant that Kageyama was hiding something.

That very night, when the two vacated the living area for their bedrooms, Shouyou fished out his student laptop that he very much used a lot but not for the studying part his mother had intended it for, and brought up his search engines, ready to do a little bit of searching.

A little bit of searching ended up with a whole lot of embarrassingly escaped tabs before he could fully understand what was actually _on_ them, because apparently searching anything regarding _“meat addiction”_ was some sort of euphemism Shouyou didn’t think he could say the same way ever again.

If Kageyama was willing to let him call it _this_ when it meant something else instead of doing something humanely decent and _correct him_ , he could have avoided this whole mess. But if he was going along with it still, then there was _definitely_ something he was hiding.

Shouyou spent a lot more time than he had ever spent in his whole life trying to research for some sort of ailment that would make someone need to eat red meat. When he found that people with iron deficiency really don’t have to gorge on the blood (and meat) of animals just to keep moving, he knew there was definitely something fishy about the whole thing.

By the time morning rolled around, Shouyou was ready to kill Kageyama.

So, spying and researching really wasn’t part of his forte. Maybe he’d get better results if he just up and confronted Kageyama and asked directly. But like, more forcefully than usual. Without offering his own ideas for Kageyama to cling onto like a lifeline.

When he blinked at his cereal, certain popup images still clung to the insides of his eyelids, and he had to spit out his mouthful of milk back into the bowl.

_Damn you, Kageyama._

Kageyama gave him a look from his floor position with insult, as if he could hear his internal thoughts. “You nearly spat that on me!”

Or because of that.

“Sorry,” Shouyou said, not all that sorry at all, and took his bowl out to pour into the sink. Kageyama didn’t follow him into the kitchen physically, but his voice rang strong enough to sound like he was right behind him.

“Are you sick again or something?”

Emotionally, maybe. If that was a thing.

He clattered the remains of his dishes in the bowl, and as he turned to leave to get ready for his regretful day in class, Kageyama actually emerged into the kitchen doorway, blocking his path. He was scowling at him per usual. “At least answer me, dumbass. Otherwise I’m gonna think you really _are_ sick – hey did you even wash your bowl?”

 _“No_ and _no!”_ Shouyou hissed, trying to slip past the taller guy’s legs. His first attempt was read though, and he choked when his neck got caught between a thigh and the edge of the doorway, so he pulled himself back in to save his life.

“That’s not part of the deal,” Kageyama scowled even harder at him, actively trying to fill out the door space more efficiently. “You can't just _own_ the sofa and _not_ do the dishes.”

“I do the dishes every day!” Shouyou flung his hands above his head, exasperated. “Let me have a break for once! And what is your _deal_ with the fucking sofa?”

“My deal? _You_ won’t let me on it!”

“With your bloody drippy meat stuff! You can still – _sit_ on it!”

Kageyama pulled back. “Wait, I can?”

_“YES!”_

Kageyama blinked at him, as if he doubted what he was hearing, before peering longingly out of the room to admire a lover from afar. Like the sofa was being seen in a new light. He turned around with an even deeper scowl marking his features. “Then why have you been making me sit on the floor for the past three weeks?”

Shouyou finally found his opportunity to escape into the hallway by slipping under Kageyama’s arm. “Because you’re _stupid_ enough to do it!” he crowed, slamming his door behind him to gather his class supplies and give him some sort of safety boundary between him and the aftermath rage that was on its inevitable way.

Somehow, an enraged bull depiction of Kageyama did _not_ come charging into his room to drag him to the confines of hell like he imagined, which left Shouyou terrified to actually leave his room in fear for an ambush attack awaiting him on the other side. He hesitated for another minute or so, listening with bated breath through his doorway.

Then his phone lit up with a text and scared him shitless.

At first he thought it was going to be some threatening ruse from Kageyama to get him to bolt out of the door, and was disheartened at the idea that Kageyama’s first ever text to him could be something along the lines of _“haha I set fire to the apartment good luck with that”,_ but was both relieved and disappointed to find Kenma’s name light up the text screen instead. He swiped it open, skipping reading the preview message.

Sent from: KenmMAAAAA

Hey Shouyou, Kuroo’s dragging me to an old volleyball meetup party and I don’t want to be stuck alone there. Can you come with me? It’s like a sleepover thing, so you just need pjs and a toothbrush.

Shouyou smiled, remembering his old volleyball rivals with a fond memory. They were all friends, even if they did want to wipe the floor with each other. He wondered if Bokuto would be there – he was a guy after Shouyou’s own heart after all.

As he tried to reply, another text popped up.

Sent from: KenmMAAAAA

Please don’t forget your underwear this time.

He typed back a hasty confirmation (plus a _“that hapnd 1 TIME”)_ and collected his bag, finally jovial enough to forget about his Kageyama ambush worry.

Luckily, it seemed his rampant imagination was at its finest, because Kageyama wasn’t ready to ambush him. Shouyou could spy him at the sink, cleaning out their bowls.

 _Weird._ But kind of nice? But mostly weird.

“I’m going now _b-ye,”_ Shouyou called as he reached for the door, ready for his day.

But then Kageyama croaked out a, _“Wait,”_ and Hinata paused with his hand on the handle, glancing back.

Kageyama was peeking from around the kitchen, his hands still sudsy and wet, even though he played with a hand towel between his hands. Shouyou felt wary at the newfound hesitation in Kageyama’s movements, as one partially dried hand carefully scratched at the back of Kageyama’s neck.

“Will you be staying in tonight?”

 _Oh_ , so it was Missing Kageyama day. Shouyou really needed to write down the dates and see if there was some sort of correlation between them, because they were infrequent enough to catch him by surprise, but frequent enough to keep happening. This was his fourth one, maybe?

But, _ironically-_

“Nah,” Shouyou wiggled his phone screen at him. “I actually just got invited to a meetup tonight! So, I won’t be back till tomorrow.”

Kageyama’s eyes lit up, as if the bastard was pleased about this. “Oh! Good.”

Good? _Good?_

“So mean, Bakageyama!” Shouyou held a metaphorical wounded heart on his chest. “It’s like you _want_ me out of the apartment!”

In response, Kageyama gave him one of his signature freaky as fuck smirks, as he made his way over to stand tall and _close_ to Shouyou’s person.

“Well, it’s like you said earlier,” he murmured, leaning above Shouyou and looming down, making him feel _small_. “-we all need a break for once.”

And then the bastard pushed him through the doorway, and neatly slid the door shut behind him.

Shouyou stared at his apartment door for three seconds.

“YOU-YOU _ASSHOLE!”_ He screamed at the wood, hearing Kageyama’s muffled evil chuckle emanate from the other side.

 

* * *

 

So, adult sleepovers weren’t really a thing, Shouyou found out. And like, so maybe somewhere in the world there _were_ , but they weren’t here, and if it _were_ here, it involved alcohol, and a lot of drunk men _with_ alcohol, and it turned out Shouyou was still the smallest of all his old volleyball rivals from high school, and that also made him a _fucking lightweight._

He didn’t get drunk often, in the same way he didn’t drink coffee often. Which was not at all.

“I think I lost my toe,” he burped, back down somewhere on the endless pile of pillows and covers that had been strewn across the floor. So, it was _kind of_ a sleepover, but having eighty percent of your body weight being the amount of alcohol gurgling around in said body, it made for one heck of a different experience.

“Your toes are all accounted for,” Kenma reassured him, even though Shouyou was certain he hadn’t actually looked up from his handheld console to check.

“You lie!” Shouyou sobbed, his hand rising to point but feeling too heavy, so it just bounced off his very full stomach. He felt like a water bed.

“Not lying,” Kenma said, ducking when a spiked pillow nearly knocked his head clean off. He scowled over at the perpetrator. “Keep your roughhousing over there, otherwise Shouyou’s gonna puke on everything.”

Someone apologised, probably, but Shouyou couldn’t hear who as he was preoccupied sniffling into his own elbow. “I’ll have you know, I haven’t puked spontaneously since like – that one time in Tokyo.”

“No, but if someone whacks you in the stomach with one of those pillows you’re gonna throw up all of those drinks you had earlier.”

“Mmm,” _Like a fountain,_ Shouyou thought. He peeked through the gap between his elbow and his nose. “Puke can’t stand between our friendship.”

“It can if it gets on my game.”

“All of my friends are _fake!”_ He wailed, rolling very _very_ slowly onto one side. He was so _full, bleh._ “I wonder if Kageyama would ditch me if I puked on him.”

“That’s your roommate, right?” Kenma asked. “How’s that been going for you?”

 _“Uggggghhhhh,”_ Shouyou bemoaned into a stray pillow.

 

* * *

 

Shouyou didn’t realise until he woke up the next morning, his face allocated between Kuroo’s knee with a stray hand on Akaashi’s face, that drunk-Shouyou had _no filter._

“Oh no,” he groaned, the freshest roll of nausea paired with the distant memory of him ranting to Kenma about everything.

_Everything._

He told him about Kageyama’s one blackmail secret. _The meat._

And the long list of dubious search history on his computer that he’d been advised by Kenma to clear, because his apartment Wi-Fi was public.

_“Not to like, make things weird between you guys,” Kenma had said at one point, “-but are you sure that isn’t like… A creepy fetish or something?”_

_“Fetish?” Drunk Shouyou had grimaced. “Isn’t that a sex thing?”_

_“Well, yeah,” Kenma shrugged. “-but there’s really no circumstance I can think of where slurping bloody meat is in any chance normal. Maybe he’s into that.”_

And now present Shouyou was stuck with the worst (and only) hangover of his life, stuck leaving his weird as fuck volleyball reunion sleepover, and stuck heading home with fetishisms on his mind.

There was no way, was there? Shouyou couldn’t think so. As far as he was aware, Kageyama wasn’t becoming sexually charged with his bad eating habits. And in the sink? On a _plate?_ That wasn’t a sex thing! That was a food thing!

But Kenma was his smart friend, even if he couldn’t exactly remember just _how_ he’d gone about explaining the meat problem to him last night.

Maybe _he_ was the bad friend. His head swam with regret and other dubious substances.

He had managed to worm his way home before the sun had risen, because his hangover was going to be a million times worse in the light Kenma had told him, so he had to get home before he could pierce his retinas with agony and death. He thought it might be just past 6am but he wasn’t willing to blind himself on his phone screen to check.

He eventually got to the safety of his front door, and relished in the sensation of curling up into his dark warm bedroom, and sleeping until he had flushed all of the toxic turmoil out of his system, but as he turned the bolt in the lock, and began to open the door, the whole slab of wood ricocheted back into him and knocked him clear into the apartment hallway.

He groaned on the floor.

 _“What_ the-”

 _“DON’T COME IN!”_ Kageyama’s voice roared through their door.

“Kageyama _what the FUCK!”_ He yelled back, hearing the scuttling of feet inside. “You can’t shut me out of my own house!”

There was no reply this time, so Shouyou dubiously picked himself up, catching himself on the wall when the world swayed without him, and cautiously opened the door like it was ready to attack his helpless, hungover state.

The shared areas were empty.

“Kageyama, what the _fuck_ was that about!”

Kageyama’s voice picked up from inside his own bedroom. “You said you weren’t coming home until later!”

_What?_

“It _is_ later! It’s tomorrow! I said I’d be back tomorrow! That’s _today!”_

“The sun's not even up yet!” Kageyama spat back.

“Its _morning!_ How stupid are you?”

“Whatever! Leave me alone!”

_“Fine!”_

Shouyou’s head rang from arguing with two too many doors for his liking, and he quickly poked his head into the rest of their rooms to make sure nothing weird had been going on in them. Why was Kageyama even _in?_ Didn’t his weird Missing days mean he’d be out for the whole night? That didn’t make sense.

And whatever it was he was in the middle of, it was something he clearly wasn’t _supposed_ to be doing.

Kenma’s words wiggled like an infectious little brain worm in his ear, and he leapt for the safety of his bedroom. _Nope!_ Thoughts were _not_ going there! He smothered his face onto his pillow, praying for his confusing day to end despite how it had only just begun.

 

* * *

 

To the disappointment of himself, his hangover coma only lasted until around two in the afternoon, which meant he had to crawl out of the darkness of his domain and actually get himself a drink. If he was in a good enough mood he might have begged Kageyama to fetch one for him with some good old puppy dog eyes, but after _that_ kind of welcome, he’d imagine the request would not go over well.

After sipping on some refreshing tap water, he groggily made his way to the living room to find Kageyama laying across the sofa, watching the TV on mute - _with subtitles?_ Shouyou squint-blinked at the screen, unable to read the words fast enough before they got swapped with the next line. That seemed difficult. Shouyou didn’t want to _read_ TV.

“Uh, hi?” he offered, a little satisfied when Kageyama jumped in place, caught off guard. At least he seemed to have gotten over his weirdness regarding the sofa.

But then he leapt off the furniture like it had stung him, and Shouyou realised he had thought too soon. A shame. He had the urge to dig his cold feet under Kageyama’s shirt and watch him shriek, but standing Kageyama was too tall for that. Before he could figure out how to point and ask Kageyama to _lay back down,_ his roommate took some paces forward, as if trying to leave the room.

Kageyama swallowed, actively avoiding his stare as he looked down to the side. “Sorry, ‘bout earlier. You surprised me.”

He was _definitely_ trying to wiggle past him. Shouyou stepped in front of him, cutting him off, and a little angry. What was with him recently?

 _“I_ surprised _you?”_ Shouyou spat. “Do you have a _thing_ for trying to break my face in half every time you throw a hissy fit?”

Kageyama’s apology face sizzled into a sneer, and his nose curled when he bared his teeth. “God, you need to watch your fucking mouth sometimes, because I-”

 _“Is_ this a thing, though?” Shouyou cut him off verbally this time. “-This meat thing. Is that a part of this too? Is this a fetish or something?” Kageyama swung his head around with wide, enraged eyes.

“A – _WHAT!”_

“A _fetish_ , Bakageyama _! F-E-E-T-I-S-H_ – Fetish!” He didn’t actually know if that was how it was spelled, but it was out in the open now and he needed to address it now that Kenma had planted it into his one way system brain.

“ _God_ , you’re so fucking _stupid-”_

“Well _you_ won’t give me any answers!”

Kageyama looked up to the ceiling as he dragged a hand down his face. _Oh no,_ Shouyou thought, _God can’t save you from your sins now._

“It’s _not_. A fetish.” He gritted out. “And you spelled it wrong, dumbass.”

 _Fuck_.

“Really?” he really hoped he didn’t sound too hopeful in his angry tone. Because he was more relieved than anything that his roommate might truly not be some weird fetish fiend. _God bless._

“Is that what you think this is?” Kageyama asked helplessly.

“Well - what _is_ it then?” Shouyou barked back at him.

 _“I can’t tell you!”_ Kageyama exclaimed. He did this weird thing where his teeth remained out as he breathed, like he didn’t know how to keep his mouth closed when he was angry, so he just kept it open when he wasn’t talking. Shouyou impulsively grabbed his chin and clinked his jaw shut _for_ him, and watched the incredulous rise of Kageyama’s eyebrows at the action.

 _“Why_ can’t you tell me? Isn’t this just a you-thing?”

“I can’t – it’s…” he breathed heavily and pushed Shouyou away from him, needing room to breathe. Shouyou let him this time, standing and staring, waiting.

“You’ll, freak out, so I can’t.” Kageyama exhaled. Then he shook his head, and he was back to flashing his teeth about like he didn’t know how lips worked. “And don’t fucking expect shit from people, dumbass. You can’t just _yell_ at me when I’m trying to apologise and expect a fucking answer.”

“I don’t understand! Why would I freak out?” But Kageyama was already storming off, surprisingly _out_ of the apartment. “It’s just meat, isn’t it?”

The door slammed shut, and it continued to ring throughout the apartment, making the air feel hollow.

 

* * *

 

 _Was_ it just meat though?

Kageyama couldn’t even answer that for him. And okay, so the fetish thing was out of the window, but unsourced meat that he couldn’t even scramble out a _“its beef!”_ or _lamb_ or _pork_ , or anything remotely plausible had Shouyou very, _very_ worried.

What if that meat wasn’t… _Actually_ any of those options.

 _“You’ll freak out, so I can’t.”_ still echoed in Shouyou’s thoughts sometimes. There was only one kind of meat that could actively freak him out.

_Peoples._

And not in the euphemism way this time.

What if Kageyama was, in fact, a _cannibal?_

And okay, the fetish accusation was probably a step less from a cannibal accusation, but there was something just so very not right in the practice that was Kageyama eating unnamed bloody meat sources on a day by day basis. It was almost like he was addicted to it, the way he would casually state that he liked meat, and the fact that he lived off a certain sized supply of it every couple of days, and the fact that Shouyou could _never figure out where he kept the portions_. They definitely weren’t in the fridge, or the freezer, which meant he probably stored it somewhere in his bedroom, which was very scary to think about.

But he was at least certain that Kageyama wasn’t feeding _him_ humans, because most of their meals tasted like ground beef, and various search engine answers told him humans would taste more like pork, so he believed he was spared from the cannibalism cause. Which was nice. Kageyama could have easily deceived him and gotten him addicted to the morally questionable raw meatiness of his random ass blood dishes and then he would have been forever trapped attending weird maybe monthly nights at cult festivals dissecting some unsuspecting victims.

So, he was… Guessing a lot here, but it was a work in progress.

He was however, this time, prepared not to jump the gun like he did with the last one. He sent a lot of upset texts at Kenma who both apologised and told him that he wasn’t particularly concise when spouting to him drunkenly about his roommate using way too many misinterpreted meat sentences. So technically _that_ was Shouyou’s fault too.

The biggest obstacle now was figuring out how to talk to Kageyama about it.

Because after their last display, while he was recovering from a hangover, and Kageyama was post-moody from his weird ritual night thing, and he had managed to piss Kageyama off enough to make him leave the house, which was something that _had never happened before_. He came back later that evening, when Shouyou had cooked himself some microwavable noodles, and went straight to his room.

They hadn’t talked since, and it was painful.

Even more painful than the weird absence thing with the sofa. Because now Kageyama didn’t even _eat_ in the living area, he just occupied that little random stool in the kitchen, and then vanished back into the confines of his creepy private bedroom.

So now, Shouyou was ready to attempt to make amends. Even if it was with a cannibal.

But Kageyama was a _nice_ cannibal, for like – _cannibal standards_. He didn’t try to stab him, so that was a good starting point.

Shouyou shook his head, trying to clear his thoughts from their quickly growing downward spiral. He was jumping the gun again! He didn’t know if he even _was_ a cannibal, he had to stop this bad habit of overthinking!

… Somewhere deep in the crevices of his mind, he could hear Tsukishima laughing at the mere thought of him thinking at all.

Wafting away his little Internal-shima, Shouyou waited for the perfect opportunity, which was when Kageyama would be eating in the kitchen, to take his own dishes to the sink to clean. He peered over his shoulder to see Kageyama giving his plate a pretty aggressive case of the glaries, so Shouyou took his next step of action, which was to double check the fridge. Inside, the contents were about as minimal as usual. There was a couple packets of chicken breast strips and a bag of mixed veggies, along with some eggs. But no mystery meat.

When he closed the fridge door, Kageyama was staring at him. Or his direction. It was progress, even if the stare held a squint that so very clearly read, _“what the fuck are you doing over there?”._

Shouyou blinked at him slowly, to acknowledge that he had received and acknowledged the encoded message, and then kneeled to open the freezer door below it. He knew it was empty but instead lingered and waited until he could hear the clink of dishes as they were set into the sink. Shouyou peeked over the freezer door to find himself in direct eye contact with Kageyama, who was now by the sink. Almost warily, as if worried for an impending trap, Kageyama closed the distance between them.

“What. Are you doing?” He asked with grit teeth, as if the very notion of talking to him first hurt his pride.

Well it was tough luck for him, because it boosted Shouyou’s a little, so he closed the freezer and stood back up, feeling goosebumps rise along his arms from lingering at the refrigerator too long.

“I was just looking for something,” he shrugged.

“If you didn’t find it, I didn’t eat it,” Kageyama said, rolling his eyes and turning around. Shouyou floundered for a moment – he was almost in his grasp but he was already losing him – and snagged Kageyama’s elbow. He froze, and Shouyou had to pretend not to be surprised when the tense posture trapped his digits between the crease of Kageyama’s bicep and tricep.

“Uh, no – it’s just- I needed to say-”

Kageyama slowly turned his head around to look down, almost incredulously at Shouyou. He waited, silent.

“-where do you – keep the meat?”

Kageyama stared at him for a solid moment, before shrugging off the caught fingers from his arm. “ _Please_ listen to what you’re saying.”

“Okay, okay,” Shouyou exhaled. He’d try again. “Where do you – _get_ the meat?”

_“Hinata-”_

“Why is the meat _important_ to you?”

Kageyama grabbed his shoulder, making Shouyou squawk at the sudden grip.

“We _really_ need to talk,” Kageyama stressed, pulling him into the living area.

“That’s what I’m trying to do though!” Shouyou huffed, wheezing when he got shoved a little too roughly onto the sofa. He yelped when Kageyama forcefully yanked his legs up and off the cushions, then sat in their stead beside him.

“You’re not asking the right questions, then,” Kageyama told him. A little frazzled, Shouyou pulled himself up into something slightly more presentable, eyeing Kageyama warily next to him.

“Try again,” Kageyama bit out.

“N-no,” Shouyou pouted, watching the tell-tale signs of Kageyama’s thick and heated death glare. “I always ask things that piss you off, so maybe _you_ should ask _me_ the questions!”

 _There_ was the stare. But it had a little less death in it, so that was probably a good sign.

“What would _I_ need to ask?” Kageyama asked, frustrated.

“Now you see my dilemma!”

Kageyama opened his mouth to retort, but then it closed without making a sound, and then he pensively gripped his chin like he was actually thinking about it. _Holy shit._

“Fine,” Kageyama gritted out. “Let’s not ask questions anymore. We can just – talk, instead.”

“Talk,” Shouyou echoed. Kageyama nodded.

“Right.”

“I’m sorry I accused your eating habits as being perverted,” Shouyou blurted out rapidly.

“You thought – _what?”_

“Fetish,” Shouyou explained.

“Oh – that thing.”

Shouyou nodded. Kageyama inhaled deeply, and only released a slow breath after leaning his head back to stare up at the ceiling.

“I – get why you’d think it’s. Weird. Even if you are still completely wrong.”

Shouyou ignored the jab. “You’ve kind of made it like – a big mystery,” he said instead. “Like, I can just never figure out why you do it, and sometimes it seems like you just have random stock of mystery meat from nowhere, and I can’t figure out what’s going on half the time.”

He paused to allow Kageyama time to respond, but Kageyama was just staring at him, almost calmly, from his place on the shared sofa.

Then he said, “That last part is just because you’re really stupid.”

Shouyou kicked at him. “I’m _trying_ to be nice!”

“Then try harder!” Kageyama snapped back, tugging at Shouyou’s hair.

“I still haven’t finished confessing,” Shouyou grit out, trying to disentangle those stupid manicured fingers from his hair. When Kageyama pulled his hand free, he rubbed absently at his palm with his thumb.

“Yeah, I think I know where it’s going,” he said. Oh God, had Shouyou’s wild imagination been _that_ easy to read? He felt his cheeks warm.

“It-it doesn’t mean anything unless I admit it though, so just listen, okay!”

“Sure,” Kageyama carefully stopped fiddling with his hand, keeping it still in his own lap. He watched Shouyou with careful consideration. He must have been steadying himself for the convoluted ideas that Shouyou’s unfortunate imagination often suffered through.

“The truth is, I’ve been having really… bad ideas about you,” Shouyou continued. He was hyperaware of the patient nod that came from Kageyama, and bit the inside of his cheek, kind of mad. _Why are you nodding? Did you really expect this?_

“The reason that I’ve been trying to look for answers so bad is because I guess - if I _had_ the answers then I wouldn’t need to think about it so much?” _-and then my imagination wouldn’t be going rampant with cannibal theories,_ Shouyou wept internally.

“The truth is-”

“You’ve got feelings for me, right?”

“-lately I keep thinking you might be a cannib- _wait WHAT!”_

Kageyama squinted. “Did you just call me a cannibal?”

Shouyou gaped at him. “Did you just say I have feelings for you?”

And then like clockwork, Kageyama’s hand slowly reached to scratch at the back of his neck. “You… _don’t?”_

Shouyou floundered on his spot on the sofa, all and any cannibal related thoughts tossed straight out of the third story window. _Feelings?_ What did _feelings_ equate to? _Like-like feelings?_ They had been yelling insults at each other since they first met, what was there to confuse this with?

“What gave you _that_ impression!” Shouyou probably yelled a little too loudly. Kageyama rolled his eyes as if he was being too dramatic.

“Well, why _else_ would you be willing to accept my eating habits? I know it looks odd - that’s why I was hiding it to begin with! I figured you were like – trying to accept me for who I am, or something, when you let me start eating as I wanted.”

“That’s exactly what I was trying to do though!”

“Yeah,” Kageyama blinked. “So, feelings.”

“Not _those_ kinds of feelings!”

Kageyama huffed, then said, “You’re very handsy though.”

“We! _Scuffle!”_

“We do,” Kageyama nodded. “It’s pretty intimate.”

Shouyou could hardly breath. _Intimate!?_ “I’m not feeling _those_ kinds of things, though!”

“Do you feel things with your hands?”

“What - of course I do!”

“Then that’s feelings,” Kageyama smirked as if he had just won.

Shouyou felt as inflamed as his hair. “That’s _different!_ A different kind of feeling!”

Kageyama almost looked ready to argue, but then slumped a little more in his seat. “Sure, then. A different kind of feeling.”

Then his face remembered it wasn’t meant to look soft or thoughtful _ever_ , and reverted to its original sharp and nasty glare. “Now what the fuck was the thing about cannibalism?”

Shouyou _eeped_ , left to pray for his early death.

 

* * *

 

The next day Shouyou found himself somehow still alive (but barely), out in town with, surprisingly, _Kageyama_. In fact, it was Kageyama who had asked him to come out with him, which was kind of horrifying but also really too intriguing for him to decline, even if mere days before he had been pondering the odds of a cannibalism cult that he could have been getting led into.

Kageyama had managed to verbally deny his claim this time, and called him a dumbass many, many times for it. It had escalated to them resuming their much missed scuffling against the sofa, even if Shouyou lost completely because he was still swamped and embarrassed that Kageyama had implied that them wrestling like a bunch of rabid children could be misinterpreted as _intimate_ . When he said this to Kageyama he did his _dumb fucking smirk_ from overhead and parroted back to him, “But it’s a different kind of feeling, isn’t it?” and _really?_ You could just turn a guy’s words back around against him like that? Truly the epitome of evil.

And to truly earn that evil title, him winning the skirmish made him self proclaimed owner of the sofa, and his first decree was that Shouyou had to sit on the floor for the rest of the day. Shouyou flipped him off and tried to chill the heat from his skin in his bedroom instead, and when he had returned later that evening he found a cooked meal waiting for him and sudden room on the edge of the furniture. So, it wasn’t all _that_ bad, he supposed.

But as of right now, he and Kageyama were out _together,_ and Shouyou was putting a ridiculous amount of trust in Kageyama right now, who could very well be leading him to his death, as he blindly followed him through a set of small narrow streets he couldn’t recognise.

This was it. Shouyou had grown soft and had let his guard down, and now Kageyama was actually going to murder him and use him as comfort food.

“I thought you said you were gonna stop thinking I was a cannibal,” Kageyama growled, startling Shouyou from where he was going cross-eyed from thinking too hard about his premature death.

“I have!” He lied. Kageyama gave him a sour look over his shoulder.

“Sure, whatever. Get over yourself already. You wouldn’t be tasty anyways.”

 _“What!”_ Shouyou hissed. “I’d be fucking delicious!”

Kageyama actually _laughed_ at that. Shouyou nearly tripped at the sound of it, because he didn’t know Kageyama was capable of such noises. Then he remembered _why_ he was laughing, and a hot rush of anger-barrassment flushed through him.

“You practically have no meat on you,” Kageyama jabbed. “-and what remnants could be salvaged would be stringy and lean, so there’d be no point.” Shouyou was going to chew Kageyama’s ankles off.

“Well, how would you even know?”

“Because I know what quality meat tastes like,” Kageyama said, shutting him up.

But only for a moment.

“…You know you’re _not_ helping your case any,” Shouyou muttered.

“Shut up,” Kageyama gruffed, pausing at a little windowed door. “We’re here.”

 _Here?_ Where was here? Shouyou glanced at the strange, terraced building, with an open windowed front. Across its length was neatly written bargain deals in chalk and paint, and Shouyou realised he was looking at a butcher’s shop. He glanced back at Kageyama, who was watching his reaction carefully. He rolled his eyes.

“It’s not sketchy, it’s just a butchery. Don’t be weird, come on.”

“I’m not being weird!” Shouyou defended, swallowing the little niggle of fear that tickled the back of his throat. He tailed Kageyama inside, stiff limbed and ready for ambush.

The door jingled upon entry, and inside was, to Shouyou’s absolute horror, a quaint, stuffed little butchery. And yeah, okay, the shelves and glass cabinets were strung with various raw meats like some sort of shoddy house of horrors set, except it looked a lot more in place than he thought rows of meat ever could, and the oven in the back layered the shop with what he _expected_ to smell like dead corpses as something husky and delicious instead.

He kind of wanted a burger now.

“Ah, Kageyama,” an aproned man behind the counter smiled through his thick moustache, his brow furrowed and thick over his eyes.

“Hey,” Kageyama said, tone oddly subdued and relaxed. Shouyou gaped at him. _Whomst the fuck?_

“You want your usual?” the butcher guy asked, and Kageyama nodded with a short bow.

“Yes please.”

“Alright, gimme a moment then.” He acknowledged Shouyou with a hairy-lipped smile, and Shouyou didn’t really know what to do in this foreign environment, so he grimaced a not-well-thought-out smile in return, and then ducked his head behind Kageyama to hide his shame.

“Brought a friend, did you?” The butcher man asked from the back. Shouyou frowned down at the back of Kageyama’s ankles, embarrassed and feeling small and out of place. He watched Kageyama shuffle his feet slightly, as he repositioned himself in front of him.

“Yeah,” Kageyama spoke like addressing the weather, which was something he had never done around Shouyou _ever_ and therefore it was _weird_ and _this whole scenario was weird-_ “-he’s been egging me for weeks to ask what I’ve been using in my goulash recipe, so I figured I’d show him where I get my bits and pieces.”

“Oh, that sounds nice! Maybe I should ask for your recipe one day, haha.”

And Kageyama chuckled softly _with_ him, as if he had actually heard something remotely funny, which there _wasn’t,_ and _clearly_ this shop was a pocket out of their dimension of basic reason because he was cowering behind some sort of Kageyama-lookalike-imposter or something.

Shouyou couldn’t help but twist his thumb into Kageyama’s bottom rib. His jolted response pleased Shouyou, even if the reflexive backhanded kick at his shin did not.

The butcher came back in with four individually wrapped slabs of something, stacked into a carrier bag, and Kageyama wordlessly handed him the exact change for it. On the till’s price screen, Shouyou could make out the price for _4x Beef Steak Cuts_ and felt… kind of stupid.

“I hope to see you again soon!” the butcher waved them off, and Kageyama had some abnormal, human decency to wave back at him as he nudged Shouyou back out of the door. They kept walking down the street, and Kageyama didn’t quit shoving his weight until they got around the corner.

Then he hit the wall next to Shouyou’s head, and Shouyou regained fear for his life.

“You couldn’t sit still for one moment while we were in a fucking _store?”_ Kageyama hissed at him, somehow looking threatening even though he was dressed in a loose shirt and shorts with a little white plastic shopping bag dangling from his wrist.

“I didn’t like how you were acting in there!” Shouyou hissed. “It was weird and creepy!”

“You think _everything_ I do is weird and creepy!”

“Yeah, because it _is!”_

Kageyama groaned, then shoved his bag at Shouyou’s chest. “Look,” he barked. “It’s beef. Is my cannibal name cleared now?”

Shouyou flared his nostrils, then scowled at the cute little parcels in his possession. “Fine,” he gritted out. “You’re hereby no longer a cannibal suspect.” Kageyama’s sharp little smirk was ticking him off though, so he added, “-but only if you actually cook us goulash tonight.”

 _“You-”_ Kageyama ripped the bag out of his hands, “-are incredibly needy. Like a ratty little child.”

Shouyou felt his jaw drop in offense, and before he had a moment to even _think_ of a snappy retort, Kageyama bolted, pacing down the street like his life depended on it.

It probably did, if Shouyou had anything to say about it.

“BAKAGEYA _MAAAAA-”_ Shouyou tore through the streets after him, strangely invigorated in the chase.

 

* * *

 

As berating as it was to be told he was wrong, Shouyou was, in a way, relieved to know that his roommate was in fact, _not_ a cannibal, and just really liked raw undrained steak like the true abnormality that he was. It meant that Shouyou didn’t have to do any more of that awkward justification for trying to validate wanting to be friends with him, and he was now safe to wrestle over sofa rights as he so pleased.

Well, _almost_ free.

The real problem now was that he was aware Kageyama was interpreting it as something else. _Intimate,_ he called it. Which felt off and unsettling in a much different way than all the previous problems they had struggled through together, because this one was something he couldn’t really find a way out of.

Even Tsukishima, when asked vaguely about it in class, said that _technically_ anything is intimate if it involves a lot of physical contact, and sofa wars involved 95% physical contact (the remaining 5% was reserved for confused spontaneous battle cries), which meant that Kageyama was still somehow _right_ , even if his logic was shitty. Because it was a different kind of intimate than the definition Shouyou was used to, and he didn’t _want_ to start calling his relationship with Kageyama an intimate one.

Nothing was simple when it came to Kageyama, and Shouyou hated it.

To Shouyou, intimacy was supposed to be those tender moments he saw in movies, where a guy and a girl would hold hands, and offer flowers on important dates, and lead to romantic subplots and kissing and make outs that Shouyou was too embarrassed to even attempt to watch through in any given circumstance.

His violent tendencies with Kageyama had no remote correlation to this. It _couldn’t._

But then sometimes he’d find himself prepping his chin over Kageyama’s shoulder to see what mysteries had been added to Kageyama’s surprise evening dishes he cooked, and he would be met with a side eyed glance without any heat to it that reminded Shouyou that Kageyama did _kind of_ have very pretty eyes when they weren’t solid and hardened with agitation, and then Kageyama would lower his knees just a little so Shouyou could actually see what was in the dish.

When he drew the ladle through the mixture and blew on its contents and asked Shouyou if he wanted to taste it, Shouyou whipped a tea towel at his face.

 _“Why,”_ Kageyama seethed, after flinching away and sending a well-placed kick in Shouyou’s direction that capped his knee and sent him falling gracelessly; all the while mister perfect Yamayama would still be perfectly balancing his full ladle in one hand and nursing his face in the other, while still balanced on one leg.

Shouyou didn’t really know why himself, but angry Kageyama was easier for him to deal with than questionably placed feelings Kageyama.

“You’re not getting any tonight,” Kageyama spat, and then Shouyou remembered that his actions were not just a part of some convoluted internal emotion. He squawked from where he was sprawled across the floor.

“But then what can I eat?”

“Figure that out for yourself,” Kageyama growled at him with one eye, the other closed and skin pink along the edge and _yeah, okay_ so maybe that had been a little mean of him.

When Kageyama finished dishing up his meal, and Shouyou settled for some toast, he found himself sitting silently on the floor while Kageyama took hostage of the sofa, not an invitation to scuffle in sight.

He crunched on his toast and regretted not grabbing himself a drink along with it, because it was rough down his throat and made his voice scratchy.

Over the talk of the TV of some random press conference he wasn’t acknowledging, Hinata croaked, “Kageyama, are we intimate?”

At first, he thought Kageyama might have been ignoring him in favour of his meal, which – _fair,_ but then Kageyama replied, “You ask really weird questions.”

Shouyou gnawed a little more aggressively on his toast _. “Are_ we though? You kept calling us that, a while ago. It bothers me.”

“The wrestling?” Kageyama asked hesitantly. “But _you_ started those.”

“No, the _word!”_

“Then just call it something else,” Kageyama said, like it was easy. Shouyou dropped his crusts onto his plate and groaned.

“Why do you say it as if it’s so simple?” Shouyou whined to his crumbs sliding around on the dish.

“Because it is. You’re just overthinking it. I’ve noticed it’s something you do a lot.”

Shouyou turned around to look up at him in uncertainty. “You have?”

Kageyama gave him a blank stare, then raised his hand, fingers flicking up with each new word. “Iron deficiency, fetish, cannibalism-”

Shouyou grabbed the offending hand and shoved it into the crease between the cushions. “Point. Made!”

When he let go and glanced back at Kageyama, he noticed him staring fiercely at his wrist buried within the furniture. Then he directed that look at Shouyou, and said, “ _That_ – right there. You do stuff like that and then complain when it’s called intimate.”

Shouyou’s face burned. “I said don’t call it that!”

 _“Fine_ – you impulsively grab me whenever you feel like it, and then shy away at calling it – _that,_ so I can never figure out what your deal is.”

He pulled his wrist back out with a grimace, and Shouyou was hyper fixed on the little red imprint markings that embedded against Kageyama’s skin. He swallowed anxiously.

“Kageyama… Do you – consider it… _Intimate?”_

Kageyama flexed at his wrist, scowling pensively. “I guess.”

Was this another Shouyou-originated problem? Had all the interactions Shouyou actually enjoyed between them been so one-sided? Guiltily, he realised he had never really _thought_ about how Kageyama felt about everything. He swallowed again, throat dry, wondering if he had been forcing Kageyama to an even weirder disposition than he felt he was in himself.

“…Are you, _okay_ with that?”

“I mean it’s annoying,” Kageyama admitted, and Shouyou tried to sink his head into his shirt like a lousy turtle. “-but I’m not like, against it or anything. It’s just kind of – the behaviour I expect from you.”

Shouyou tried to be insulted by that, but instead he could only distantly think about – “Like how I let you eat your creepy meat everywhere?”

“Minus the couch,” Kageyama sulked.

“You’re _not_ eating it on the sofa!”

_“I know!”_

Kageyama exhaled, then relaxed back into his seat. “What I’m trying to say is that, maybe we’re both a little bit weird. And we just have to figure out what we’re okay with and not okay with as we go, I guess.”

“You’ll tell me, right?” Shouyou asked him. “-if I push buttons too far?”

“Sure,” Kageyama sighed quietly. “Here, take this.”

Shouyou yelped when Kageyama’s empty plate and fork were balanced on top of his head, and he scrambled to catch them as they immediately slipped off. “My eye still hurts,” Kageyama explained, and Shouyou rolled his still working ones and took their dishes out to clean up.

When he came back into the living area a short while later, Kageyama had relocated along the furniture, his legs bent just enough for a free spot in the corner of the cushions, and Shouyou pretended he couldn’t feel the light flutter beneath his ribs.

 

* * *

 

Shouyou thought things _could_ be considered as back to normal, despite how things now were also being very different. The only way he could describe it was as if everything in their apartment was the way it had always been, but now there was _more_ . Because nothing had truly changed in what they did, and their expected routines, but everything they did felt more _personal_ than before.

They still scrambled for sofa rights. It was always a battle for who could lay out the most on the sofa at any given moment, because neither could truly lay down together at the same time and thus there were always leg cramps abound. One night, Kageyama’s sock had come loose in the fight, and he won by shoving his bare toes into the inside of Shouyou’s much warmer thigh - enough to make him jump and lose what cushion space he was trying to defend. And then he’d be left as Kageyama’s personal feet warmer, where the broodier guy would dig his feet under Shouyou’s spot and he’d let him, because he was both the loser that evening but also because it just felt okay to do.

So, things were pretty different, but still the same.

Shouyou still asked “weird” questions that Kageyama never answered properly, but his answers were never as futile as before.

“What do you do on those monthly nights out?” Shouyou would ask, and Kageyama would now reply with, “I – can’t say,” which would piss him off but would be quickly quipped with a, “-sorry, Hinata,” which made the answer more acceptable for some reason; and, “What if I start putting myself on that raw meat diet, Yamayama?” would end with a giant palm squishing his face and the response of, “Trust me, you _won’t.”_

And so, it came to a big surprise to Shouyou when That Day rolled around again.

“Hinata,” Kageyama called from the kitchen, voice raised over the sizzling sound of his diced steak frying in the pan. “Will you be staying in tonight?”

From the sofa, Shouyou sulked. He had _wanted_ to chill and watch movies with Kageyama tonight; it was a Saturday after all, and that’s when they had the best chance of decent films available on broadband. If it was a Missing Kageyama night, he’d be stuck by his lonesome, while Kageyama would be out gallivanting off somewhere else.

“Hinataaa,” Kageyama drawled, waiting for an answer. “Answer me dumbass, before I throw this hot spatula in there!”

Shouyou squeaked, fearful for his crispy future, and stuttered out, “O-out! I’m out!”

 _“Nic-e.”_ Kageyama sounded like he was replicating the sizzle of his cooking.

Shouyou slumped into his seat, disappointed at Kageyama’s glee, before he realised; he _didn’t_ have anywhere to go out to tonight. He’d spoken before he’d thought – and if he admitted that to Kageyama he’d probably tell him it was something he _always_ did, and also maybe get sad enough to redact that “nice” comment.

But, when Shouyou really thought about it, he had only ever gone out during Missingyama nights once, and Kageyama had still been in the apartment when he got home early. So could it be – would Kageyama be leaving at all? Or did he only _leave_ if Shouyou _stayed?_

His brain was storming up a probably not good idea again, especially since Kageyama was really touchy about not answering this one question.

So, he’d be a good egg tonight. He’d make plans, for Kageyama’s weird ritual night’s sake. Unfortunately, Kenma was busy, but after abusing his long list of contacts, Shouyou managed to strike gold with Bokuto. He was going out to a bar with some friends and was honoured that Shouyou wanted to join him.

After a little bit of redressing, Shouyou said his farewells to Kageyama and the apartment and set off into the evening, trying to keep his focus on his night out, and not on the mystery that was whatever it could be that Kageyama did in his spare time.

 

* * *

 

Shouyou really tried to stick by his plan, he really, truly did. But not long after showing up at the bar, Bokuto was nothing but a lost cause to the crowd, too eager to party to remember his tiny, very much distracted friend, who was left forcing himself through conversations with people he didn’t really care for.

Even after some free drinks were handed around, Shouyou really kind of wanted to go back home. Saturday movie nights weren’t something he had ever skipped before, and doing so now apparently had something equivalent to a withdrawal effect. He wanted to watch a Don Bluth film, not sour his tongue on beer.

For a short moment, Shouyou thought his salvation arrived in the form of some Russian giant named Lev (Shouyou’s head only came up past his belly button – what the fuck was this guy eating!?) who challenged him to a jello shot contest, which seemed so much more enriching than beer. Unfortunately, Shouyou was in for a losing battle, because by the time managed to snag his third jello gooey substance down, he finally noticed the rising chants and cheers from everyone around him, and then realised his seemingly innocent fruity jello shots were actually alcoholic.  

He bolted mid-battle, despite the cheers and cries for Lev’s forfeited victory and the confused distant “Hinata?” from Bokuto as he fled the scene. He just couldn’t do this, this night. He wanted to escape and go home and eat some curry with Kageyama and fall asleep to the flashing lights of their TV or to fall of the sofa, whichever came first.

Future Shouyou would slap himself into the dirt and choke him on his own collar for how fucking stupid he was. But Future Shouyou wasn’t here right now.

He made it to his door with little trouble, luckily not taken advantage of despite the small jiggly anxiety his alcohol jello shots were making him feel in the pit his stomach, and he slid inside his apartment with a silent grace he didn’t know he possessed. It was the jello at work, he was sure.

Inside, all the lights were off, and Shouyou might have thought Kageyama truly had gone out for his Missing Rituals, if it wasn’t for the blatant flicker of flashing lights with timed sound effects coming from the TV, and Shouyou grit his teeth, flushed with a pit fueling sense of frustration. Kageyama _was_ home – watching movie marathons _without_ him!

He forgot entirely about how he was supposed to be out for Kageyama’s privacy sake, and made his way to the living area, tongue hot and ready for some tacky jello ignited yelling, but as he made it to the doorway, all sense of words evaporated from his mouth.

_That wasn’t Kageyama-shaped._

A hulking mass of _something_ was sat upright in the middle of the sofa, with elongated, thick legs perched on the floor; abnormally stretched claws decorating the tip of each toe. From top to bottom, the mass of something was covered in a thick coat of black coarse hair, illuminating the shape of its front from the light of the TV. A deep ridged chest protruded out unnaturally from its slim, twisted figure, and a fur brimmed head sat atop, face pointed off in the curve of an inhuman snout. Its muzzle was flecked in blood, stained wet and shiny across its maw with exposed flashing teeth, and a large tongue licking at a smear of red across its shiny black nose.

It was _huge._

Shouyou hadn’t noticed he wasn’t breathing until his lungs burned with time, and he gasped instinctively for air.

The thing whipped its head around from watching the TV screen to watching _him,_ its eyes black and beady, small ears alert propped on the top of its narrow head, and then it mirrored Shouyou’s gasp.

It was at that moment Shouyou realised the thing was wearing nothing but a pair of striped boxers that Shouyou was distinctly certain belonged to Kageyama, it’s giant hand-paw _thing_ steeped in a bowl of raw meat chunks, prepped against the sofa’s armrest like some sort of replacement for popcorn.

 _“Uhh,”_ the thing said, in a slightly huskier but _definitely-Kageyama’s_ voice.

Shouyou flicked the light switch on and pointed an accusatory finger at him.

“You _have_ been eating your damned meat on the sofa!”

Kageyama chucked the bloody bowl at him.

 _“That’s_ what you’re concerned with!?”

 

* * *

 

Shouyou blinked into his hands.

“So, werewolves are naturally bloodthirsty, but you accidentally found out that eating a fuck tonne of bloody meat every other day actually staves off the expected murder rampage you would _usually_ go on when you shift every month?” He repeated, just to make sure he had heard right.

“Yeah,” Wolfyama gruffed.

 _“Huh.”_ Shouyou sniffed.

It was unreasonably – no, no this was _definitely reasonably_ – perturbing how he felt the heavy puffs of breath from Wolfyama’s doggy nose, as he tilted his head and leaned towards where Shouyou was trying to define how drunk he truly was.

“You’re not reacting,” he said.

“Im processing, gimme a minute,” Shouyou reaffirmed.

“Mm,” Wolfyama hummed. Then he added, “You smell like alcohol.”

“I had jello shots.”

“Did they taste nice?”

Shouyou dragged his face out of his hands to pout at him. “You’re distracting me from processing.”

His beady little eyes, at least up close, were less of a black and more of a deep blue, Shouyou discovered. But then he opened his weird giant snouted mouth to say, “Sorry, I forgot how long it takes you to think.”

Without thinking about it, Shouyou whacked Wolfyama’s chest. The fuzzy contact only lasted for a second before a grizzly mutation of a paw-hand grabbed at his wrist, yanking it back with an intensity more painful than Shouyou wanted to admit, although he still actively yelped at the action.

 _“Watch it,”_ Kageyama hissed. “-in this form, I’m still – _agitated-_ ”

Which _kind of_ explained why he was always a fucking asshole the days after he returned from his Monthly night shifts, or whatever they were actually called now, but he didn’t appreciate being grabbed like that. With his free hand he offered the gross meat bowl to Wolfyama’s face. “Then eat some more of your dumb miracle meat, jerk.”

Surprisingly Wolfyama let go immediately, using his giant creepy claws to pick at a morsel of sloshy meat with care.

“Mkay.” He popped it onto his tongue like he was eating a grape.

Shouyou grimaced at his hand, his thumb had dipped into the rim of the bowl and there was that ever present smudge of red marring him now. Guess it just meant he was in kind of deep on this new secret.

“So, what’s gonna happen now?” Kageyama asked after he had swallowed his portion.

“What do you mean, what’s gonna happen?” Shouyou gave him a look. “We’re gonna finish watching whatever movie you decided to watch without me, and then tomorrow you’re gonna scrub the floorboards top to bottom where you threw all your bloody shit everywhere!”

“Blood’s not that hard to wash out,” Wolfyama sneered, the short fur along his chin swabbed in bubbled chunks said otherwise.

“I swear if you _lick it off-”_

 _“No!”_ Wolfyama snapped, but then seemed to remember what he was doing and swung his razor teeth brimmed muzzle away from Shouyou’s direction. “Just use seltzer water and lemon, dumbass.”

In the end they settled, awkwardly, side by side on the sofa, watching what remained of a really tacky Tom and Jerry movie that didn’t seem like it needed to exist. Wolfyama filled out the sofa more so than Kageyama did, so Shouyou was wedged rather heatedly between a furry hip and a squished arm rest. Even with a few sly elbow jabs at each other for space, Shouyou couldn’t help but feel tingly and warm. But he’d blame that on the jello.

“I can’t believe this whole deal was you being insecure about being a closet furry.”

Wolfyama kicked him clean off the sofa.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Angry brain: MAKE THEM A COUPLE
> 
> My needy lil asexual ass: I DON’T KNOW HOWW


End file.
